Our Passion

Hunting and fishing isn’t what we do – it’s who we are. Backcountry Hunters & Anglers celebrate the great American tradition of testing your personal boundaries amid the solitude of the wilds. We understand the urgent need to speak up for those irreplaceable experiences if we want that kind of opportunity for future generations.

Protecting Habitat

As students of nature, hunters know that adequate and healthy habitat is the foundation of healthy wildlife populations. In the end, our freedom to hunt and fish depends on habitat. Native wildlife has both intrinsic value and is often reflected in the health and quality of habitat itself.

Standing Up for Your Rights

We are “boots on the ground” hunters and fisherman, standing up for quiet experiences in wild habitats, entirely removed from the disturbances of crowds and machines. We enjoy the wonder and adventure of the pristine outdoors with our friends and families – and work to defend and expand quality opportunities for hunting and fishing.

Engaged Membership

We help sportsmen around the country be effective, protective voices for the wild habitat essential to quality hunting and fishing opportunities. Our membership is actively engaged, and our voices are trusted and respected.

Backcountry Guardians

We combat threats to the wild, quiet habitat that support our traditional hunting and fishing opportunities and access. We stand up to off-road vehicle abuse of public land and wildlife, as well as those who would abuse our habitat and water for commercial gain. Our networks of on-the-ground volunteers help report abuse and comment on issues impacting our public lands.

Vigilant Advocates

We constantly identify critical projects to improve access and habitat, applying our values, and developing beneficial relationships with private property owners, local agencies and community leaders.

Active Educators

We educate and inform our membership, the public and decision-makers through our website and our publications and one-on-one communication. Our quarterly magazine, Backcountry Journal is a forum for member stories, state activities, and the most pressing issues we face.

Watch Our Videos

We speak for traditional hunting and angling interests, the voice of sportsmen who love truly wild places: the home of a real backcountry experience.

Welcome to Backcountry Hunters and Anglers

A land that is facing ceaseless development. A people mired in obesity from their over-reliance upon technology and motorized equipment. A quality of life—particularly the sporting life—that is rapidly careening downhill. These are some of the basic tenants of our call to arms—for American and Canadian sportsmen and women to stand up for the wild country and wildlife that depend so much upon it. Now, more than ever before, we need wild lands: places to rekindle the depths of the human soul. Backcountry Hunters and Anglers is a non-partisan group of sportsmen and women who are standing up for wilderness and for the wildlife that depends upon it.

Created by Congress 50 year ago, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is a bipartisan commitment to safeguard our sporting heritage by conserving lands with high wildlife habitat value, important water resources that support healthy fisheries, and secure access for recreational opportunities like hunting and fishing that fuel a $646-billion outdoor recreation economy.

By utilizing revenues from the depletion of one natural resource - offshore oil and gas - to support the conservation of another precious resource - our land and water, LWCF doesn’t burden tax payers to make critical investments in partnership with state and local efforts to bolster America's national parks, national wildlife refuges, national forests, national trails, and BLM areas. Here's just a small taste of what some of these LWCF-funded Bureau of Land Management projects and Fish & Wildlife Service projects look like.

“The sportsmen’s community can stand squarely behind this bill as a great step forward in protecting our ability to fund and implement the conservation of at-risk habitats, species, and access,” said Whit Fosburgh, president and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “It’s a great example of bipartisan legislation that addresses the needs of America’s hunters and anglers, and we’d like to see a lot more of that consensus.”

The bill contains seven provisions to reauthorize or implement legislation that helps fund conservation programs on federal and private lands, which boosts sportsmen’s access to quality hunting and fishing, including reauthorization of the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA). Prior to its expiration in 2011, FLTFA had leveraged strategic federal land sales to fund 39 priority conservation projects, including many that expanded sportsmen’s access to world-class hunting and fishing opportunities.

As we commemorate our nation's heritage and welcome the unofficial start of summer, it seems appropriate to acknowledge the role of America's public lands legacy in our summertime traditions.

Here at Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, that means going fishing. And in honor of our public lands angling opportunities, we're giving BHA members a chance to win a wealth of great prizes by entering our 4th annual Backcountry Fishing Photo Contest!

Submit your most picturesque, memorable or entertaining image capturing the backcountry angling experience anytime between July 1-31 for a chance to win one of four fantastic prize packages from Costa, Fishpond, Sage, Rio, Simms, Redington and Souplefly. Check out the prizes and complete contest rules below.

As temperatures rise we remind folks who are releasing fish to #keepemwet. This includes wetting your hands before you handle your subject, keeping it over or in water and, finally, minimizing its time out of the water. Tight lines!

The summer issue mailed today! Here’s a little teaser to what’s inside with our Executive Director’s column and “Backcountry Beyond the Horizon,” an awesome story about kayak shark fishing off Long Island, NY.

Also in this issue we have an excellent break-down of stream access laws around the country, a state-of-the-sage-grouse conservation primer, our new department “Backcountry Bistro” with tips on making stream-side trout ceviche, and much more!